Harvesting Human Biomechanical Energy to Power Portable Electronics

Abstract:

It is known that human body contains rich chemical energy, part of which is converted to mechanical energy up to 200W, especially when human in walking, so human body is an ideal sustainable energy resource for portable electronic devices. The motion pattern of human movement in normal walking is studied, showing that the arm swinging, knee motion and hip motion can be approximated as sinusoidal functions with relatively large amplitude. In order to harvest such human motion, several methods are investigated, including pendulum, translational spring and torsion spring, which can also be mathematically formatted as second order differential equation with damped item. This paper also gives a typical device to harvest human motion: a novel energy harvester which directly converts human motion to electricity based on electromagnetic induction. Detail structures of the harvesting device are illustrated with mathematical analysis. Simulation studies are also made.

• Periodical: Advanced Materials Research (Volumes 516-517)
• Pages: 1779-1784
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.516-517.1779
• Online since: May 2012
• Authors: Long Han Xie, Ruxu Du
• Keywords: Biomechanical Energy, Energy Harvesting, Portable Electronics

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